Obama loses more than 2 million Twitter followers amid crackdown

Former President Obama lost more than 2 million followers on Twitter this week as the social platform removed inactive and locked accounts from follower counts, according to a preliminary review by The Hill.

Obama, who had 104 million Twitter followers prior to the crackdown, had roughly 101 million as of Thursday afternoon. Still, the former president remains the third most-followed person on the platform behind Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.

President Trump, who had 53.4 million Twitter followers before the platform began pulling accounts from follower lists this week, had 53.1 million followers as of Thursday afternoon. Trump remains the 18th most-followed person on Twitter.

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The drop in Twitter followers came after the platform formally announced on Wednesday that it would begin the process of removing “locked accounts” from follower counts in an effort “to build trust and encourage healthy conversation on Twitter.”

Twitter said the accounts are locked after the platform detects “sudden changes in account behavior,” which includes tweeting out a large number of unsolicited replies, sharing links that are misleading or being blocked by a large number of users that have been mentioned by the account.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to provide comment on Thursday.